


ill wait for you (promise me youll be there)

by gingerbread man (xphantomhive)



Category: Homestuck
Genre: M/M, Memories, Nightmares, PTSD, Post-Scratch, Therapy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-26
Updated: 2015-07-26
Packaged: 2018-04-11 09:01:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4429364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xphantomhive/pseuds/gingerbread%20man
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He has ebony hair and dazzling blue eyes and tan skin and he loves movies and makes stupid jokes and you would wait an eternity for him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	ill wait for you (promise me youll be there)

**Author's Note:**

> i can explain.
> 
> (no i can't.)
> 
> ps, the song i used is "unwell" by matchbox 20.

all day, staring at the ceiling

making friends with shadows on my wall

all night, hearing voices telling me

that i should get some sleep

because tomorrow might be good for something

You have a mansion.

You have a mansion, and it’s enormous and it’s filled with furniture and awards and material things that don’t really _matter_. It’s still so _empty_ , and you hate it here, you wish you could just sell the place off and live in a roach-infested apartment but that isn’t how it works for you, Dave Strider, famous movie director. So you stay here and spend your days in a full house that feels so empty, staring at the ceiling.

You’re alone, and you think that’s the biggest pain of all. You’ve tried making friends, of course. But they’ll do _things_ , like make jokes that aren’t funny and they laugh anyway or make snarky quips or talk and talk about how much they love dogs, and it’s all too familiar, and you break the friendships off but never explain why. It’s been so long that you’ve made friends with the shadows on your wall,

the three, the one with square glasses that wears a stupid windsock and has dazzling blue eyes and the one with blonde hair who carries a spellbook and has sharp amethyst eyes and the one with dorky circular glasses and dog ears and fiery green eyes.

And you know them, you swear you do, but your memories have fizzled to nothing and you can’t _remember_ them, and it fucking hurts. The only place you can recall anything is in your sleep, but you always dream of a bright flash and a boy calling your name, _“dave dave dave dave”_ and you wake up in a cold sweat. Eventually, you stop sleeping altogether. The shred of remembrance you get isn’t really worth the ache in your chest.

Those same shadows morph into voices, voices that pester you to get some sleep because something worthwhile could happen tomorrow, but you wouldn’t know, because you’d be too busy falling asleep in your cornflakes ( _a girl's voice whispers this quietly and a boy giggles in return_ ) but you don’t listen.

The medication doesn’t work for shit.

hold on,

feeling like i’m headed for a breakdown.

and i don’t know why.

You start seeing a therapist on your twenty-ninth birthday.

You aren’t really sure why. Maybe it’s because you feel like you’re jumping head-first into a breakdown, or maybe it’s because the voices tell you that you need help, that you need someone to vent to ( _it’s a girl's voice but not the high-pitched one that’s followed by a boy’s giggles it’s the soft, comforting one with a motherly quality_ ) even if you don’t want to.

The therapist is an eccentric young woman with acute teal eyes and choppy ginger hair, and her office is decorated in pictures and paintings and posters of dragons and wow, someone’s a little obsessed. “Have a seat, David,” she says, and you bite back vomit because all of this is formal and awful and you hate it but a voice tells you that it’s okay, you’ll be okay, coolkid ( _and it’s the boy’s voice it’s the boy that giggles it’s the blue boy and you love him you love him you love him_ ).

“Tessa,” The therapist greets stiffly, reaching a hand out. You know she wants you to shake it but you don’t want to, and you wonder briefly if that’s rude of you and another voice tells you that it isn’t rude if it makes you uncomfortable ( _and it’s the soft voice that goes with the amethyst eyes and you miss her you miss her you miss he_ r). “Right.” Tessa coughs awkwardly and lowers her hand, pulling a clipboard from underneath her seat. She reminds you of someone. Who, who, who?

 _Terezi_ , a voice whispers carefully ( _and it’s the high voice that belongs to the dog girl and you wish you could talk to her you wish you could you wish you could_ ). “So, what are you here for, David?”

You lean over the side of the sofa and throw up all over her red carpet.

But I’m not crazy, I’m just a little unwell,

I know right now you can’t tell.

But stay a while and maybe then you’ll see,

A different side of me.

Tessa puts you on some medication.

You can’t remember what it’s called, but you know that when you hand it to the CVS clerk her shoulders slump forward and she smiles sympathetically. Tessa had told you the meds would help curb your visions and stop the voices, and you asked her to promise you it would work, and she did, she assured you that everything would stop as soon as you took a pill.

It’s been three days now, and you know she lied. You still hear voices and you still see shadows dancing on your wall and you tell them to go away, that you don’t want them here because they aren’t real and a voice whispers why don’t you love me anymore dave, i still love you so much ( _and it’s a boy it’s the fucking blue boy and you love him you miss him you want him and you love him so much it hurts your chest_ ).

Five days in, you toss the pills in the trash. The motherly voice asks you why you’d done it, why you threw them out, Tessa prescribed them to you and you spent your money on them, and you tell her that they weren’t helping anyway and it was just money, you have plenty of it, the faster you waste it the better.

You never wanted it, anyway.

im not crazy, im just a little impaired,

i know right now you dont care!!

but soon enough, youre gonna think of me,

and how i used to be, me!!!!

Seven days after you throw the pills out, you have another appointment with Tessa. She asks you how everything has been going thus forth, and you tell her it didn’t work so you tossed the things in the trash because they were garbage, anyway. Her teal eyes widen behind the sharp red glasses she’s wearing and she goes, “David, you can’t just throw them into the trash because they aren’t working perfectly.”

“But you told me they would,” You snap back. “You fucking promised.”

And you’re ready to get angry, but you feel three sets of hands on your back and then a voice whispers to you that she’s a liar but you shouldn’t get mad at her, i never liked it when you got mad at people dave ( _and it’s the boy with the bad jokes it’s your blue boy and you don’t want to upset him, you never want to upset him, so you calm yourself down significantly for his sake_ ).

“Yes, I’m aware. You’re my patient, I’m meant to make you feel comfortable, even if lying comes along with that. I can put you on something stronger, perhaps?” No, you don’t want to be on something stronger, you don’t want to be on anything at all because it won’t work, you know it won’t, but a voice tells you that it’s okay, if you don’t like the pills you can just throw them out again, it’s always your choice ( _it’s the girl it’s the girl with the high voice and the green eyes and you try to imagine her and her smile but you can’t remember you can’t you can’t and it hurts like hell_ ).

“Okay,” you say quietly.

im talking to myself in public

dodging glances on the train

and i know, i know theyve all been talking about me

i can hear them whisper

and it makes me think there must be something wrong with me

out of all the hours thinking

somehow ive lost my mind

It takes a while for you to leave your house for anything but therapy.

Months, probably. Once you’re finally ready to step outside, winter has hit, and so you have to bundle up tightly and trudge angrily through the snow. You don’t know where you’re going, but you don’t want to take one of your cars. You’d much rather prefer to take a train. You sit down on a park bench that’s covered in snow to wait, but you couldn’t care less if you tried.

“Hi,” someone says, and it isn’t a whisper this time, it isn’t in your head. You turn and there’s a person sitting with you, but they don’t look right, and they aren’t dressed right for something like this ( _ **he’s** dressed in a blue t-shirt and blue pants and ugly yellow shoes and he has black hair and blue eyes and it’s him, it’s your blue boy_ ). “Dave, you’re so stupid. Why are you out during the winter? You’re a Texan.”

How could they…

How could _he_ ,

possibly know that?

“Rude, Egbert,” You reply, and how the fuck do you know that name, who the fuck is Egbert, you’ve never heard that name in your life. “I have half a mind to leave.”

A few people are watching now, but you bet they’re watching him and not you, not just because he’s dressed like it’s sixty plus out but because his smile is bright and infectious and god, he’s beautiful. “Looks like you have to anyway, Dave!” He croons, and before you know it he disappears into thin air.

 _Like the wind_ , your mind provides.

You climb onto the train and nab a corner seat, and that’s when you finally notice people are whispering about you, but it isn’t the normal whispers like, “oh my god, it’s Dave Strider, he’s comedy gold!” but whispers like, “that was him, the man chatting with an invisible person on the bench,”

and you’re doubting your sanity.

You get out at the next stop, even though it isn’t yours.

but i’m not crazy, i’m just a little unwell,

i know right now you can’t tell.

but stay a while, and maybe then you’ll see,

a different side of me.

After three visits, Tessa tells you that she thinks you might be suffering from PTSD.

She asks you if you’ve ever went through anything traumatic in your life, and you can’t remember anything that you’d found to be particularly scarring, but then you think of the dream and the bright lights and the boy who chants your name and all you want, you’ve realized after all these years, is to hold his hand. You want to hold his hand tight and you don’t want to let him go, you don’t want to let him

die

_alone._

“Not that I can think of,” You respond harshly. Tessa raises a slender eyebrow and opens her mouth to speak, but she changes her mind and snaps it shut. “I think I’m fine. You’re just trying to mooch off of my money.”

“That’s not it at all,” she sighs and casts her clipboard aside.

I’m not crazy, I’m just a little impaired,

I know right now you don’t care.

But soon enough, you’re gonna think of me,

And how I used to be.

After three more visits, you stop seeing Tessa altogether.

It’s clear she isn’t really doing much to help you, and whenever you try to tell her something she only tells you that it's your PTSD. One of the voices apologizes profusely, tells you they thought it would be okay, they thought therapy would help ( _and it’s a girl’s voice and it’s soft and you know it’s the blonde with the spellbook and you’ve never heard her apologize to you before and you hate it_ ).

The other two voices console that voice, and you aren’t sure if they do it on purpose or accidentally but one of them slips up and calls the soft voice Rose, and then the high-pitched voice squeaks and the boy’s voice tells her it’s okay, it was only an accident, and the name Rose is so common you won’t find anything about it.

But you do.

Rose Lalonde, famous author. Lives three miles from you. You sit in your house for days on end and build up courage to go talk to her and even though it takes a week you finally do, and you drive over there and knock on her door like a Jehovah's Witness which is a bad example because people don’t usually get the door for them.

You guess it’s her who opens the door, with blonde hair cut neatly into a bob and sharp amethyst eyes that look you over curiously. And then she breathes, “Dave,” and launches herself into your arms.

She cries into your shoulder and you cry into hers.

ive been talking in my sleep,

pretty soon, theyll come to get me!

yeah, theyre taking me away!!

You and Rose spend a lot of time together, talking about strange things that happen to you, and she’s the first person to ever believe you when you tell her that you see shadows and hear voices because she does, too. You stay at her house most of the time, and she hums you songs and pets your hair like a mother would.

Your dreams become more vivid after you meet her, all of the gray spots filled in with color and tragedy. You still dream of a bright flash and a boy chanting your name and you can almost reach his hand, _almost_ , he’s so close and your fingertips brush before the flash consumes you and you awaken.

“John, hm?” Rose thrums after you wake one day, and you tilt your head sideways to convey your confusion and raise an eyebrow. “You do know you talk in your sleep, don’t you? I’ve heard you say the names Jade and Rose countless times, but the one you seem to be most fond of is John.”

You pull her into a hug and squeeze her so hard your arms hurt.

but im not crazy, im just a little unwell

i know right now you cant tell

but stay a while and maybe then youll see

a different side of me

You research the name John as you had the name Rose.

It takes even shorter to find someone of significance of that name then it had with Rose, and you almost cry while you’re reading the wiki page. His name is John Crocker, he was a famous comedian, and he died when he was eighty-six years old in an accident involving a ladder.

Rose tells you that you can’t be sure it’s him, but you take one look at the picture and tell her that you’ve never been sure of anything in your life. Of course he looks older than the boy you’d seen - he has gray hair and wrinkles - but there’s no mistaking those blue eyes and bucktoothed smile. This is him.

And then you do cry, into Rose’s chest. She pats your back and promises that it’s all going to be okay, that maybe some day you’ll see him.

You wipe your tears and try to believe it too.

(you arent insane you cant be youre just unwell thats all)

i’m not crazy, i’m just a little impaired,

i know right now you don’t care.

but soon enough, you’re gonna think of me,

and how i used to be.

You never get married.

You live out your entire life with Rose. It may sound like long-term dating to most, but you don’t feel that way about Rose and she doesn’t feel that way about you. Everyone is curious as to what’s going on between movie director Dave Strider and author Rose Lalonde, and you two laugh at the headlines because there’s nothing between you two.

“I am curious as to why you aren’t married, though.” She says one day, absentmindedly fooling with a loose string on her cardigan.

It’s a good question. Why aren’t you married?

( _he has perma-messy ebony hair and tan skin and dazzling blue eyes and he makes jokes and loves movies and you love him, you love him more than your shitty movies and more than your shades from ben stiller himself and more than life itself and you’ll wait an eternity for him_ )

“Egbert.” You reply. The name feels foreign rolling off your tongue, but you know you’ve heard it before and you did say it, once, but you weren’t really sure who you were talking about but you know there’s a timeline where you do.

Rose nods and doesn’t ask again.

hey how i used to be

how i used to be

well im just a little unwell

how i used to be

how i used to be

im just a little unwell

You die before Rose.

And when you do pass, you try to stick to your “death is death” thing and remember that you had no religion, you’d thought it was lights out, never wake up again, maybe heaven maybe hell,

and when you wake up and feel a heat so intense it feels like your skin is melting you know you’ve surely ended up in hell.

But when you sit up, you’re dressed in some ridiculous ensemble, an entirely red outfit that looks almost like a costume to you. Then there are people hugging you and talking to you and laughing but they aren’t fake, they’re real, and you can see them all. You can see the girl with the dog ears and the green eyes and the girl with the blonde hair and the sharp amethyst eyes and the spellbooks and they aren’t just shadows and whispers anymore.

And neither is he.

The boy with the black hair and the blue eyes and the stupid jokes smiles the widest of them all and throws himself at you, squashes you in a tight hug, then pulls back and crushes his lips to yours. It’s awful and it tastes salty and your glasses clink together but you don’t care you don’t care you don’t care _you don’t care_ , you have waited for him and you would have waited longer if you had to.

“Dave,” he says sweetly, like it’s his favorite word, like he could say it over and over again and he would never tire of doing so.

“John,” your breathe in return, like it’s your favorite word ( _it is_ ), like you could say it over and over again and you would never of tire doing so ( _you wouldn’t_ ).

**Author's Note:**

> this is like my millionth post-scratch fic and i still don't care, and i still haven't run out of ideas and i don't even fucking know how not.
> 
> i have things to update. i have many things to update. i had writers block and i emerged from it and the weight of a million ideas crushed me at once.
> 
> thanks for reading/kudosing/commenting/bookmarking/whatever you do!


End file.
